The Conveniences

By Matthew Parish

Friday 16 October 2026

The bar had wine and flattering yellow light,

And talk of who had gone and who would stay;

Its toilet was not working there that night.

The waiter merely pointed me away.

Outside, a diesel generator stood,

A massive iron box beside the wall;

It kept the lights on, which was very good,

But offered little privacy at all.

Behind its bulk, I found a narrow space

Between a broken crate and ancient stone,

And standing there, performed with little grace

The thing a man must mostly do alone.

The saints above the courtyard looked quite bored,

Their stone eyes fixed on some more distant crime;

The engine, like a bureaucrat, just roared,

And did its work, indifferent to time.

How strange that all our civilisation rests

On pipes and taps and somewhere we can piss;

We build cathedrals, entertain our guests,

Then find the modern world reduced to this.

The Habsburgs left their cornices and pride,

Their balconies, their churches and their drains;

The first two still look splendid from outside,

The last, like most arrangements, now remains

A matter of conjecture. Meanwhile war

Has made this growling monster indispensable;

It lights the bar, but cannot quite restore

The things that make a city comprehensible.

And yet I felt a curious relief,

As I stood pissing underneath the stars:

That history, despite its wars and grief,

Still leaves us time for wine and shabby bars.

Back in my seat, I ordered one more drink.

The lights shone on. The engine shook the floor.

I watched the candles gutter, and I think

I loved the bloody city slightly more.

For nothing works quite properly, it seems,

And every decent thing is overdue;

Yet Lviv survives its interrupted dreams,

Its failing pipes, its wars, its dreadful loos

.

And when the final generator dies,

And darkness takes the streets without a sound,

Some drunken Englishman, beneath these skies,

Will still be pissing somewhere on the ground.